Christmas in Nebraska

Marcel really "getting into" the tradition of baking Jesus a birthday cake.

Jozef too!

Nate and Jerzy after Christmas Day Mass

Me modeling the gift Nate purchased--a new sweater!

Kolbe posing beautifully when I asked, "Can I take your picture for my website?"

Even though it's the Holiday's, toddlers never take a vacation from looking-for-mischief.

Christmas Jeopardy

A: This is what you get to do when a toddler has a bag of Chex Mix and too much freedom.

Q: What is vacuum the entire couch?

Ding-Ding-Ding Correct!


- Double Jeopardy -

A: This is what you get to do before vacuuming the couch.

Q: What is duct-tape the vacuum because he broke the hose on it last week?

We have a winner!

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Should I consider this my Christmas gift?

December Doings

Just a few photos to share what we've been up to...

You may think this is chocolate. Really, it's one of Mom's favorite lipsticks.

Or, was one of her favorite...

Gettin' some 'Daddy Love'.


Frosting!

Flour!

Cookies!

The Toddler Who Stole Christmas

After procuring a tree and a frenzied experience decorating it with three young, high-energy boys, our tree has been robbed. The culprits are both under the age of four, usually good natured, and on my list.

They woke early the morning after we decorated and un-decorated the tree. It seems they had such fun decorating they wanted to relive the experience, only in reverse...

I fully realize that Christmas is about the birth of Christ. But seeing the ornaments on the floor, some disassembled, truly broke my heart. I had low expectations for the outcome of our tree this year, but even this stunt caught me off guard.

I believe that the essence of Christmas is Joy. Joy in Christ's birth and eventual coming (at our death and the end of time). However, the beauty of decorations and a tree that is adorned help to elevate our minds and hearts to that reality of Joy. Each time we walk into a room and look at our Christmas tree we are struck by its beauty. The beauty of things on Earth point to a greater Beauty--one unseen. This is why we have statues of Christ around and why our Churches have stained glass, etc. Beauty elevates our senses--hopefully all the way to heaven.

As I sit here and look at our tree, with only lights remaining, it is a bit sad. I love the boys God has given me and everything they've brought to my life. But life with them can be hard, too. Sometimes it means sacrificing things I'm not eager to give up.

St. Nick's Day

As is tradition in our family, the boys opened their Christmas gifts today, St. Nick's Day.

This year, we received this great statue from "Grandma" Helen -- she painted it in ceramics.

A blog post and some photos are to follow...as soon as I dig out from the living room. =)

Happy St. Nick's Day!

Beverage Confusion

Kolbe: Mom, that's cursive (pointing at my soda can).

Mom: Yep. Do you know what it says?

Kolbe: Soda?

Mom: Nope...it says "Coca-Cola". And who is this guy?

Kolbe: Santa.

Mom: Yep.

Kolbe: And he's drinking a beer.

I guess he really is a jolly 'ole elf...and know we all know why. ;-)

Household Efficiency

Daily life at our house can be quite busy. However, we have a superb monitoring system in place to ensure household duties are not neglected. Allow me to illustrate.

This weekend, Marcel was keenly aware that I was neglecting my fish tank duty. The tank was not overly dirty but I was putting off refreshing some water in the tank. A minor infraction on the household duties chart, but shirking duties is a slippery slope...

Now, Marcel is a highly trained toddler, and he realized the importance of alerting me to this negligence in order to better serve the fish and our household unit.

Yesterday afternoon, I was busy with the baby and Nate was outside in the garage. Marcel had been playing with some paint brushes as Nate was beginning to paint our kitchen the night before. The brushes had been cleaned and were brought back into the kitchen in anticipation that I would have some time to do some more painting. The brushes were clean and dry when Marcel picked one up and pretended to be painting the wall. I was glad he found a task to keep him busy and paid little attention to him.

This is when his highly specialized training kicked in and he remembered the need to take care of the fish. Minutes later, I turned around to peer into the living room and noticed Marcel watching with amusement as the fish tank began to turn white from the residual paint left in the brushes.

Now it is unclear to me if Marcel was alerting me to the need to attend to the fish or if he was pointing out the lackluster job that was done in cleaning the paint brushes. Either way, both the fish tank and the paint brushes were immediately attended to.

Isn't that an efficient system?